This Issue in focus provided brief background information for the discussions during Workshop No. 2 “Judicial cooperation in cases involving (pre)precursors and New Psychoactive Substances (NPS)” in the context of the strategic meeting on drug trafficking held by Eurojust on 29 and 30 September 2014.

Following a short explanation of the reasons for the selection of this topic and the methods followed to prepare the background information (Section 2), this paper is structured into two main sections focussing on i) analysis of the replies to the questionnaire on (pre)precursors and NPS to all Member States to identify the main issues encountered in judicial cooperation in this field and to gather the views of the national authorities on possible best practice, and ii) analysis of recent judgements on (pre)precursors pointing to possible best practice in prosecution.

Additionally, the Annex to this Issue in focus includes a table that was drafted by collating selected information from the replies to the questionnaire and covers the following areas by Member State:

• Provisions on drug precursors and pre-precursors
• Other approaches (including administrative) to drug precursors and (pre)precursors
• Approaches to NPS

The potential usefulness of this work in progress was discussed by the practitioners participating in the strategic meeting and further validated after the strategic meeting in view of its distribution among other interested practitioners.